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Saved!He showed his class again yesterday when he apologised for the Iraq war but refused to personally attack Tony Blair. David Cameron would have been throwing insults all over. This man needs to stay leader of the Labour party, and I'll be voting for him.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I know last time we talked about this I talked about how he was an IRA apologist, has defended a Hamas fundraiser and convicted anti-semite from deportation and betrayed his supposed principles by campaigning for remain after campaigning against the EU for decades. I don't understand how this isn't enough to put you off the guy but let's put that aside. Corbyn can't even lead his own MPs, they've overwhelmingly voted to say they have no confidence in him. He led Labour to the worst local election defeats for an opposition party in decades and a third place finish behind the Conservatives in Scotland (again, this hasn't happened since the 1950s). Polls show the public is even less impressed by him than they were by Ed Miliband and can't imagine him as Prime Minister. He can't control his own party and he can't win elections. Keeping him as Labour leader means deciding to lose the 2020 election and handing the Tory party a blank cheque to govern the country until 2025. The sooner he's gone the better. -
Saved!NodleyEditing … His MPs just see an opportunity to raise themselves, greedy selfish people that they are. Corbyn is honest and genuine, just because he's not aggressive and forceful doesn't mean his ideas aren't sound. -
Saved!Rich .Editing … He's not that honest though, the guy was a major critic of the EU for decades but then he campaigned for remain spouting lines he clearly didn't believe because his party pushed him into it. Those aren't the actions of someone who sticks by their principles no matter what. His history of close ties to the IRA, connections to Hamas and remaining chairman of the far left 'Stop the War' campaign even after it argued Iraqi insurgents (i.e. Al Qaeda, Ba'athist Saddam supporters) were justified in using any and all means (I.E.D's? Suicide bombing?) to kill British troops and then going on to claim he's been a lifelong pacifist doesn't exactly point towards someone who's honest and genuine either. His MPs want rid of him partly because 9 out of 10 of them never wanted him as leader and disagree with him on a lot of issues and partly because after giving him a year as leader they can see he's going to lose the next election spectacularly and they want to make a serious attempt to get into government rather than just being an unelectable protest party.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … My wife is half Irish and Ireland belongs to the Irish, I sympathise with the IRA too. We illegally invaded Iraq so any action against British troops is justified, they are comparable to the French resistance really. This is the problem with modern politics, always mud slinging, it's more about putting your rival down than what is best for the country.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Northern Ireland belongs to the people of Northern Ireland and they should get to decide whether they want to be part of the UK (which every poll shows the majority of them do) or merge with the republic. Wanting Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join the republic is a totally respectable opinion, it's Corbyn's willingness to stand with the IRA when they were trying to achieve that through terrorism and murder that I have an issue with. Corbyn didn't tell the IRA to stop killing and resolve things through peaceful campaigning and respecting the democratic choices of the people of Northern Ireland, he wanted them to win through violence and opposed the peace process.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … (commenting for notifications when convo continues) -
Saved!Rich .Editing … Al Qaeda aren't remotely comparable to the French resistance Nod. It doesn't matter whether you support the Iraq War or not (I don't either), they were killing British troops and Iraqi civilians alike using suicide bombings and indiscriminate I.E.D's all to try and make Iraq into an incredibly barbaric country similar to pre-2001 Taliban controlled Afghanistan or the territory ISIS has control of today. Iraq was a mistake because we didn't have a realistic plan to stabilise Iraq and build something new once Saddam was gone. That doesn't mean Saddam, Ba'athists and especially the Al Qaeda insurgency British troops ended up fighting weren't despicable.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The French resistance killed civilians too who cooperated with the Germans.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The French resistance mostly fought through sabotage and intelligence gathering until after D-Day. There were assassinations and attacks on occupying soldiers and some of them undoubtedly crossed the line and carried out war crimes but let's get this straight they never fought using suicide bombings and car bombings in areas crowded with civilians, they never littered the countryside with improvised trip mines that kill innocents just as often as the enemy and they were fighting for a cause a hell of a lot more noble than restoring a dictatorship or imposing a medieval version of Islam. I have no idea how a prospective Prime Minister can justify having led an organisation which gave statements saying that any measures those Iraqi insurgents resorted to were justified at a time when they were carrying out suicide bombings, car bombings and planting IEDs to kill British troops and masses of innocent Iraqi civilians alike.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Iraq is a totally different culture and you seem to forget that, not everybody is exactly like western civilisations. They did what they could how they knew best. They didn't have the same chance of intelligence gathering and help the French resistance got. They were basically using AK47s against tanks and stealth bombers dropping smart bombs costing millions each, and spy satellites, I have nothing but respect for those man enough to fight for their country under those conditions.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … if I were dying for my country I'd do my best not to harm those I'm fighting for
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Every war in history's had brave combatants on both sides, that doesn't mean we should forgive that some of those sides were fighting for absolutely barbaric causes and guilty of terrible and unnecessary war crimes. The "they were raised to think brutal dictatorship (Ba'athists) or medieval values (Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas etc) are the norm and fighting using suicide bombings, car bombings and IED's that kill civilians en masse isn't a war crime it's what God wants" excuse explains how so many people can be so incredibly messed up when they can't all have been born that way but it doesn't make them right.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Anyway what's your excuse for the IRA? They're in the midst of western civilisation, in a democracy but they chose to try and get what they wanted through terrorism and murder anyway.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I still cannot believe we're in a situation where we've got a leader of the Labour party who's failed to condemn, associated himself with and in some cases been an apologist for terrorists. I cannot believe that a lot of die hard Labour members want to keep him even now that it's obvious they're going to lose the next election spectacularly under Corbyn. If this carries on then Labour don't deserve to be one of the UK's major parties.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The British army opened fire on the Irish civilians using heavy weaponry and artillery, what's your readon for ignoring that and just mentioning the IRA?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Why can we invade, kill uprising civilians etc but other people can't do anything to us?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … You're changing the subject Nod, you've given no reason for why it's a good idea for Corbyn to stay even though his party's falling apart around him and he obviously can't win the next election and no excuse for Corbyn's history with the IRA, Hamas and apologists for terrorists and Islamic extremists. I've never made any claim that the British army's history doesn't include events we should be ashamed of and if someone leading a major political party today had supported the massacre that killed 14 people on Bloody Sunday in 1972 (I presume that's what you're referring to) I'd be condemning them as well. As far as I know there isn't an MP in parliament today who thinks the parachute regiment was in the right on Bloody Sunday but we do have a Labour leader who spent the 1980s and early 90s as an apologist for the IRA and opponent of the peace process.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I'm not changing the subject. I'm defending him against the way you have attacked his character and not given any reason why he should go. I've explained why it's ok to be an IRA sypathiser and say the things he has. Those aren't reasons for him to go.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … His history as an apologist for the unnecessary violence of others despite their extreme views and goals whilst hypocritically simultaneously calling for British pacifism, his lack of principles, conviction and leadership in the EU debate, his disastrous failure in the local and devolved elections, his inability to control and lead his own MPs or even the Shadow Cabinet he handpicked himself and the high likelihood he'll lead Labour to an even bigger defeat than 2015 if he's not gone before the next general election are all reasons he should go. Failing that I hope his MPs leave him as the leader of an empty shell and set up a new party.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … He apologises because he realises these groups exist because of what we as a nation have done to them. We're the reason groups like ISIS exist! Like I said earlier in modern politics it's all about putting the other guy down to get up, that's why his MPs are doing what they are. Corbyn is exactly what we need after Blair and dodgy Dave and all the insults and scandals. Not once have you mentioned his policies, all you've done is attack him, that says everything, you don't like him for readons stated above. I see him as the right person for this country, can you pick apart his policies and tell me why he's not?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … He's met with Hamas fundraisers, convicted anti-Semites and Hamas and Hezbollah representatives because he's been willing to overlook their appalling views as long as they share his opposition to Israel. He was an apologist for the IRA and opponent of the peace process because he wasn't appalled enough by the murders they carried out to condemn them and didn't value the idea of democracy highly enough to rebuke them and tell them a united Ireland should be pursued peacefully and should only happen if it's what the people of Northern Ireland want. I think those actions reflect very poorly on him as a potential leader of our country so yeah I condemn him for them and I make sure people know about them so they can make their own judgement. And no, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA came to exist for various complex reasons, are ultimately responsible for their own atrocities and they undoubtedly deserve/deserved to be condemned.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … And we deserve to also be condemned after using artillery on civilians and illegally invading other countries that posed no threat. We're just as bad as anybody mentioned in this post. Iraq is still a mess, it's much more dangerous now than when Hussain was in power, people die everyday even now because of us.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Redcoat scum
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I admit it, we're cunts. More people need to accept this truth and see things from others perspective, we made them hate us.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Iraq was the greatest mistake in British foreign policy since appeasement. Saddam was a tyrant with a history of oppression, racial cleansing and aggression against neighbouring countries but we failed people in Iraq by intervening without having a plan for after Saddam was deposed and without being committed enough to restabilise the country before we removed our troops. There are definitely events in our history we should be ashamed of; Bloody Sunday, Dresden, Amritsar etc, but our recent contribution to the world has generally been a good one and we've come a long way towards taking responsibility for events in the past where our government or our troops were in the wrong. Even in war our soldiers (with some exceptions that I'm obviously not going to defend) pursue a hearts and minds policy, try to minimise civilian casualties and keep to the geneva protocols and I'm proud of them for that. Our foreign policy is partly built on humanitarian goals and liberal values and I'm proud of that (although obviously I don't want to see humanitarian interventions if they're naive or poorly planned and are likely to make the situation worse). We are not remotely comparable to terrorist groups with barbaric values that kill people because of their race/religion, rape and take sex slaves, give no rights to women and execute anyone LGBT and choose to fight in ways that cause massive civilian casualties. Don't be ridiculous.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … You just contradicted yourself, Dresden caused massive civilian casualties. Also we didn't do ourselves proud at Guantanamo bay did we? What about those pictures that got out of Iraq prisons? The ones where British personnel were mistreating prisoners?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … How did I contradict myself? Dresden was on my list of events in our history we should be ashamed of. We should never have allowed people to be sent there but Guantanamo bay is an American military base, not a British one. There are British soldiers who've been court marshalled and imprisoned for mistreating Iraqi prisoners and rightly so, that's a war crime. I maintain that on the whole our country and our armed forces have far more respect for human life than terrorists like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas and ISIS do and more than the IRA used to. That doesn't mean I'm saying the Iraq war wasn't an enormous mistake, it doesn't mean I'm saying we don't need to strive to hold ourselves to higher standards and set a better example for the world and it doesn't mean that some of our troops haven't disobeyed orders and committed atrocities of their own. I'm simply saying that Al Qaeda, Hamas, the IRA etc are guilty of committing far worse atrocities far more frequently and that it's disgraceful for Corbyn to do anything other than condemn them.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Do I really need to look up old news about British involvement and torture at Guantanamo? I will when I get home if you like.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … No need, I know all about extraordinary rendition. It was a disgraceful compromise of principles to play any part at all in allowing prisoners to end up in a US prison to be tortured without trial and it's the closest western countries have came to lowering ourselves to the level of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS. I'll condemn that as often and loudly as you like but it doesn't change the fact that torture even more despicable than the kind used in Guantanamo is standard practice for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS and so are barbaric values and a despicable approach to war that maximises civilian casualties. For all our flaws, we're still in a position to condemn war crimes and terrorism and we should do so alongside striving to be better ourselves.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Not to get into a hardcore political conversation, not exactly my expertise, a British political conversation, which is even less so. I have to strongly disagree with the statement "We're the reason groups like Isis exist" that's not the case. Groups like Isis exist because of their beliefs, their beliefs that lead them to kill, mame, and rape anyone who don't share their beliefs. No action by any country, UK, US or otherwise "caused" those beliefs. -
Saved!NodleyEditing … Until we actually stop doing this kind of thing we should never consider ourselves above anybody, and I don't. I can see why they do the things they do, and I sympathise at least a little. I'm very proud to be English and I'd fight anybody I considered an invader with any means I could.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Would Isis exist if we didn't invade Iraq?
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Yes
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Saved!NodleyEditing … How would they be in power? How would they have taken on the Iraqi army?
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … I don't have a definitive answer to that question, the millions of variables involved render that a situation which is impossible to say without "X" "Y" would have happened and if "Y" had happened then "X" wouldn't have. As with "changing" anything in the past you can only speculate what the outcome could have been. I'm sure we would have a drastically different Isis for better or worse. Maybe it wouldn't be Isis in name but I highly doubt anyone involved in Isis would have just given up if the set of events that did happen didn't. I don't think you can assume that if we didn't go to war that Isis and all the horrible things done in the Middle East would just be "poof" gone.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The Taliban and Al-Qaeda both pre-date the invasion of Afghanistan, in fact they provoked it. Al-Qaeda gained support in Iraq after the 2003 invasion but their terrorist acts and hateful Islamic extremism obviously predate that too. The Ba'athists were committing major atrocities in Iraq before either Gulf War, after the 2003 invasion their atrocities took new shapes since western forces had deposed their leader, scattered their army and removed them from government but they were already guilty of all kinds of despicable things before that . ISIS grew out of a group of Iraqi Al-Qaeda fighters who took the opportunity to carve out territory in Syria after the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011 and then took on the Iraqi army. In all these origins the terror group is rooted in Islamic extremism and incredibly backwards values and in three out of four of these cases the terror group originated in an environment that western countries weren't involved in and in the other case the terror group carved out territory by taking advantage of a civil war western countries weren't involved in. Every origin has context but ultimately they created themselves and they're responsible for themselves.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Yes. But our illegal invasion let all these bad people gain more power. The simple fact is we allowed them to grow, there's no disputing that I don't know how you can pretend we have no blame. I hope the people to blame for false intelligence reports and who led us into that war face trial for war crimes.
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Saved!Retro WolfEditing … Jesus fucking christ a guy can't even put his opinion on here without being bombarded with messages about why he's wrong. At least be more civilized, since some of these messages are teetering towards "your opinion is fucking stupid and your stupid for having that opinion, it needs to be changed or your wrong." -
Saved!NodleyEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!Wrl6199Editing … Yeah I want to see more of this conversation -
Saved!LizardTaroEditing … I'll contribute to this discussion with my wisdom! -
Saved!LizardTaroEditing … penis
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I don't particularly care either way that the Iraq war was 'illegal' the reality is that the definition of illegal being used is 'didn't have the unanimous approval of the UN Security Council" and I don't see much of a connection between whether the highly morally questionable governments of Russia and China support something and whether it's right. I care that it was a mistake because of its consequences for Iraq, the region and the world because it was ill thought out and the countries involved had shifting poorly defined goals and not nearly enough commitment to rebuilding/stabilising the country once Saddam was gone.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … @Retro Wolf Meh, I'm into politics and if I strongly disagree with someone who's publicly expressing a view I'll tell them why. Nod's a grown man, he can handle his views being challenged. This is a very civilised debate compared to a fair few others I've had. Sure @Husky Wing called us "redcoat scum" but he's just excited after the "we had a war with the British and somehow won" fireworks the other day, I can forgive him.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Redcoat Scum! -
Saved!Rich .Editing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … will the conversation continue? I was enjoying the read.
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Saved!Wrl6199Editing … It must continue I want to hear more talk of politics
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I won so there's no need to continue.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … If you want to keep the conversation going by all means contribute your own opinion guys, I reckon I've got my reasoning across pretty well by now. I think Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to lead the country for various reasons but one of them is his history of associating with IRA and Hamas members and sympathisers and of chairing a campaign group which -without him ever vocally disagreeing - acted as borderline apologists for atrocities committed by Ba'athists, Al Qaeda and even ISIS. Our country is far from perfect and our history - like every country - includes things to be terribly ashamed of but that means we should strive to be better whilst condemning war crimes, terrorism and barbaric values, not that we should give up on ourselves as "just as bad as them", make excuses for Al Qaeda, Ba'athists, ISIS, Hamas or the IRA or feel responsible for the atrocities they ultimately chose to commit themselves..
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Saved!NodleyEditing … You're elevating us above them again, just ignoring our atrocities or brushing them under the carpet because "we should strive to do better" If you put our history in the past so easily then do it for the IRA too. Things should be equal right? You're cherry picking what is and isn't acceptable purely on winning this argument, an atrocity is just that no matter who does it.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Countries can move on and strive to do better when voters, values, politicians and leaders change. When there's regret, lessons learned and those responsible for something are gone from power then yes, I consider it history, not before. No-one alive in Britain today can fairly be held responsible for Amritsar, Dresden, the Boer War etc and no-one in a position of power today was in any way responsible for what happened on Bloody Sunday in 1972. We can condemn the Britain of the past for those things but the country has changed. Even the more recent things we've talked about are starting to become history, they happened under a previous government that's now gone from power and have been the subject of inquiries, condemnation, lessons learned (not as many as I would like) and (again, in less cases than I would like) prison sentences.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The Taliban, ISIS, Hamas and Al Qaeda were and are war criminals and terrorists in ways our country either hasn't been for centuries or never has been but more than that they still stand for the same barbaric values, still have the same or similar leaders and still stand by the atrocities they committed and aim to commit more. The only reason the same can't be said of the Ba'athists is because they were defeated. The IRA were responsible for more civilian deaths than anyone else during the Troubles and tried to subvert democracy through terrorism so I'm not going to accept your moral equivalence but yes, in all fairness to them (with the exception of splinter groups) they eventually laid down their arms, disbanded and started to accept that the united Ireland they want should be pursued peacefully through the ballot box. They still carried out decades of terrorism for which too many of them are unrepentant and it's an open secret that Sinn Fein is led by former IRA leaders (Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness etc) who are connected to some of the atrocities of the past. The peace process was the best way the Troubles could realistically have ended but I think there needs to be more time and a change of leadership in Sinn Fein before I'll fully consider it history.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Jeremy Corbyn is the same man who associated with the IRA at their worst and very recently with convicted anti-Semites and Hamas and Hezbollah members and sympathisers and who until only a year ago chaired a campaign group which -without him ever vocally disagreeing - acted as borderline apologists for atrocities committed by Ba'athists, Al Qaeda and even ISIS. It's the same guy and he's now in the most powerful position he's ever been in without expressing serious regret for his past associations. Until Corbyn himself is history that's all still relevant.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … So you accept that the IRA are now pursuing peace in a democratic way. Good. Now put all that in the past and forget it, it's not relevant in this discussion in the same way Dresden isn't, it's all in the past.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … All I can say is thank god for politicians like Corbyn. Politicians who can see other sides, who are willing to look past what has happened in the hope of bringing peace. We need him more than aggressive politicians who wont back down or concede a point just because. We're never going to settle anything if the IRA are still being hated on despite trying to make peace.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Well, obviously. The Provisional IRA (with the exception of splinter groups) eventually accepted a ceasefire, signed up to the Good Friday agreement, disarmed and some of its former leading figures are now pursuing the United Ireland they want through the political party Sinn Fein. That was huge progress but it doesn't mean I have to forgive people like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness who have blood on their hands from their involvement with the IRA and still hold political power. It doesn't mean I have to forgive any unrepentant former IRA members either.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … You're just ignoring everything I've told you about Corbyn, he was not an advocate for the peace process in Northern Ireland, he met with convicted anti-Semites and Hamas and Hezbollah members and sympathisers and until only a year ago chaired a campaign group which -without him ever vocally disagreeing - acted as borderline apologists for atrocities committed by Ba'athists, Al Qaeda and even ISIS. Those were not visionary or peaceful actions, they were naive and twisted actions which lent legitimacy to terrible violence.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … So he met with people, so what? All things need somebody to make a start or we'd never move on. He's never vocally disagreed.... borderline....do you actually have any factual evidence of something bad?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … By bad I mean a direct connection with some offence/atrocity one of these groups or people have done.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I haven't accused Corbyn of committing any offences himself Nod, I said he's been a sympathiser and apologist. The guy attended the meetings of IRA supporters for years, and attended memorial services for IRA terrorists at the height of the Troubles. He didn't use those connections to tell the IRA to end their terrorist attacks and pursue their goals peacefully, in fact he voted against the first steps of the peace process in parliament, gave a speech to a conference of IRA supporters condemning the Anglo-Irish treaty (remembered today as the first stage of the peace process) and lent legitimacy to terrorism by telling the Daily Express "I'm happy to commemorate all those who died fighting for an independent Ireland" when asked why he'd attended a memorial for 8 IRA gunman who'd attacked a police station. As for his relations with modern extremists I think the most damning example is his relationship with Raed Salah a convicted anti-Semite hate preacher and known Hamas fundraiser on record claiming 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy, spreading the anti-Semitic blood libel that Jews use the blood of gentile children to bake their bread and who wrote a eulogy for Osama bin Laden. Corbyn invited Salah to parliament promising 'tea on the terrace and a warm welcome because you deserve it', and tried to stop him being deported by telling British courts Salah was 'a very honoured citizen and an excellent representative of his community whose voice should be heard'. There are a lot of other examples of this kind of sympathizing and association and even more involving John McDonnell (Corbyn's right hand man and Shadow Chancellor) and Seamus Milne (Corbyn's chief spin doctor and advisor) if you want to look them up. I think at best it shows Corbyn has incredibly poor judgement and very messed up foreign policy ideals.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … "You're elevating us above them again, just ignoring our atrocities or brushing them under the carpet because "we should strive to do better"'. That's what differentiates us from them. We make mistakes, many, but that's what they are...mistakes, and we recognize them as so. Doesn't mean they didn't happen but we look at them and say "OK let's not ever let that happen again" or we remove the person/people in power who made the mistake. What they do they don't see as mistakes, they don't bomb, behead, and kill and say "oh man we did it again, ok this time it won't happen again" they don't see mistakes, they see what they're supposed to do and will continue to do it.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … That's not what happens though Ed. Has anybody ever been removed from power or been convicted of any atrocities? No. You know why? Because we won, we had nobody to answer too. It's as simple as that, I'm shocked you guys actually think we're better than others.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert, knew Iraq had no WMDs and reported just that. Shortly after he was found dead after a "suicide" in the woods. We then went to war to rid Iraq of WMDs which was later proved illegal because they had no WMDs of course. After an inquest they found it was incredibly unlikely that he killed himself but it was hushed up, only small amounts of information got out and the findings were ordered to be secret for 70 years. Is this normal behaviour?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Let's stick to the atrocities mentioned already. Dresden, was anybody ever charged? The Easter rising where the British Army used artillery on Irish civilians? And if that wasn't bad enough: After the Rising, claims of atrocities carried out by British troops began to emerge. Although they did not receive as much attention as the executions, they sparked outrage among the Irish public and were raised by Irish MPs in Parliament. One incident was the 'Portobello killings'. On Tuesday 25 April, Dubliner Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, a pacifist nationalist activist, had been arrested by British soldiers. Captain John Bowen-Colthurst then took him with a British raiding party as a hostage and human shield. On Rathmines Road he stopped a boy named James Coade, whom he shot dead. His troops then destroyed a tobacconist's shop with grenades and seized journalists Thomas Dickson and Patrick MacIntyre. The next morning, Colthurst had Skeffington and the two journalists shot by firing squad in Portobello Barracks. The bodies were then buried there. Later that day he shot a Labour Party councillor, Richard O'Carroll. When Major Sir Francis Vane learned of the killings he telephoned his superiors in Dublin Castle, but no action was taken. Vane informed Herbert Kitchener, who told General Maxwell to arrest Colthurst, but Maxwell refused. The other incident was the 'North King Street massacre'. On the night of 28–29 April, British soldiers of the South Staffordshire Regiment, under Colonel Henry Taylor, had burst into houses on North King Street and killed 15 male civilians whom they accused of being rebels. The soldiers shot or bayoneted the victims, then secretly buried some of them in cellars or back yards after robbing them. The area saw some of the fiercest fighting of the Rising and the British had taken heavy casualties for little gain. General Maxwell attempted to excuse the killings and argued that the rebels were ultimately responsible. He claimed that "the rebels wore no uniform" and that the people of North King Street were rebel sympathizers. Maxwell concluded that such incidents "are absolutely unavoidable in such a business as this" and that "Under the circumstance the troops [...] behaved with the greatest restraint". A private brief, prepared for the Prime Minister, said the soldiers "had orders not to take any prisoners" but took it to mean they were to shoot any suspected rebel. The City Coroner's inquest found that soldiers had killed "unarmed and unoffending" residents. The military court of inquiry ruled that no specific soldiers could be held responsible, and no action was taken. These killings, and the British response to them, helped sway Irish public opinion against the British.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Bloody Sunday(1920), the British opened fire on the crowd at a football match! The police kept shooting for about ninety seconds: their commander, Major Mills, later admitted that his men were "excited and out of hand". Some police fired into the fleeing crowd from the pitch, while others, outside the Park, opened fire from the Canal Bridge at spectators who climbed over the Canal End Wall trying to escape. At the other end of the Park, the soldiers on Clonliffe Road were startled first by the sound of the fusillade, then by the sight of panicked people fleeing the grounds. As the spectators streamed out, an armoured car on St James Avenue fired its machine guns over the heads of the crowd, trying to halt them. By the time Major Mills got his men back under control, the police had fired 114 rounds of rifle ammunition, and an unknown amount of revolver ammunition as well, not counting 50 rounds fired from the machine guns in the armoured car outside the Park. Seven people had been shot to death, and five more had been fatally wounded; another two people had been trampled to death in the stampede. The dead included Jeannie Boyle, who had gone to the match with her fiancé and was due to be married five days later, and two boys aged 10 and 11. Two football players, Michael Hogan and Jim Egan, had been shot; Hogan was killed, but Egan survived, along with dozens of other wounded and injured. The police raiding party suffered no casualties.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Bloody Sunday (1972), British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … This is EXACTLY why we should try to see things from the IRA's perspective! Do you see why people sympathise now? And I can go on and on and on, we'll be here all day!
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Arnon Street killings, also referred to as the Arnon Street murders, took place on 1 April 1922 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians, three in Arnon Street, were killed by Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) or Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) police officers in retaliation for the killing of an RIC officer by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Ballymurphy Massacre was a series of incidents involving the killing of eleven civilians by the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army in Ballymurphy, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The killings happened between 9 and 11 August 1971, during Operation Demetrius. The shootings have also been called Belfast Bloody Sunday, a reference to another massacre of civilians by the same battalion a few months later.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Batang Kali massacre was the killing of 24 unarmed villagers by British troops on 12 December 1948 during the Malayan Emergency. The incident occurred during counter-insurgency operations against Malay and Chinese communists in Malaya – then a colony of the British Crown. Despite several investigations by the British government since the 1950s, and a re-examination of the evidence by the Royal Malaysia Police between 1993 and 1997, no charges were brought against any of the alleged perpetrators.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Chuka Massacre, which happened in Chuka, Kenya, was perpetrated by members of the King's African Rifles B Company in June 1953 with 20 unarmed people killed during the Mau Mau uprising. All of the soldiers involved in the Chuka patrols were placed under open arrest at Nairobi's Buller Camp, but Erskine decided not to prosecute them. Instead, he would make an example of their commanding officer, Major Griffiths. And, rather than risk bringing publicity to the Chuka affair, Erskine was able to obtain evidence to have Griffiths charged with the murder of two other suspects in a separate incident that had taken place a few weeks before the Chuka massacre. However, the 5th KAR soldiers giving evidence at the courts martial in November 1953 refused to speak frankly against Griffiths. He was acquitted of the charge and rest of the soldiers were not charged either. To this day, no British soldier involved in the massacre is charged. In a letter to the War Office, in December 1953, to be found in the British archives, Erskine made this candid admission: "There is no doubt that in the early days, i.e. from Oct 1952 until last June there was a great deal of indiscriminate shooting by Army and Police. I am quite certain prisoners were beaten to extract information." To avoid a scandal, McLean's inquiry, therefore, drew a veil of official secrecy over the first eight months of the emergency. Though McLean went carefully into the details of the Chuka affair, his final report was a whitewash. He concluded that, whilst there may have been some irregularities in procedures by some units, the conduct of the British army in Kenya "under difficult and arduous circumstances, showed that measure of restraint backed by good discipline which this country has traditionally expected".
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Are you reading all these guys? I hope so! Pay attention the parts like "To this day, no British soldier involved in the massacre is charged."
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Hola massacre is an event that took place during the Mau Mau Uprising against British colonial rule at a colonial detention camp in Hola, Kenya. By January 1959 the camp had a population of 506 detainees of whom 127 were held in a secluded "closed camp." This more remote camp was reserved for the most uncooperative of the detainees. They often refused, even when threats of force were made, to join in the colonial "rehabilitation process" or perform manual labour or obey colonial orders. The camp commandant outlined a plan that would force 88 of the detainees to bend to work. On 3 March 1959, the camp commandant put this plan into action – as a result of which 11 of the detainees were clubbed to death by guards. All the 77 surviving detainees sustained serious permanent injuries.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919 when a crowd of nonviolent protesters, along with Baishakhi pilgrims, who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, were fired upon by troops of the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer. The civilians had assembled to participate in the annual Baisakhi celebrations—both a religious and cultural festival for the Punjabis. On hearing that a meeting had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, Dyer went with fifty Gurkha troops to a raised bank and ordered them to shoot at the crowd. Dyer continued the firing for about ten minutes, until the ammunition supply was almost exhausted; Dyer stated that 1,650 rounds had been fired, a number which seems to have been derived by counting empty cartridge cases picked up by the troops. Official British Indian sources gave a figure of 379 identified dead, with approximately 1,100 wounded. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500, with approximately 1,000 dead. Dyer was initially lauded by conservative forces in the empire, but in July 1920 he was censured and forced to retire by the House of Commons. He became a celebrated hero in Britain among most of the people connected to the British Raj, for example, the House of Lords.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … What do you think @richardpale? We're better than the IRA are we?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The massacre at the Qissa Khawani Bazaar (the Storytellers Market) in Peshawar, British India (modern day Pakistan) on 23 April 1930 was one of the defining moments in the non-violent struggle of the Indian independence movement. It was the first major confrontation between British troops and non-violent demonstrators in the then peaceful city. Estimates at the time put the death toll from the shooting at nearly 400 dead. The gunning down of unarmed people triggered protests across India and catapulted the newly formed Khudai Khidmatgar movement onto the national scene. In Peshawar and the surrounding area, the Khudai Khidmatgar suffered some of the most extreme suffering of the Indian independence movement. Ghaffar Khan later wrote that this was because the British thought a non-violent Pashtun was more dangerous than a violent one. Because of this, the British did everything they could to provoke them into violence, with little effect. Historical records of Peshawar Archives indicate that like many previous incidents, the British Government decided to mask the Qissa Khawani Bazaar Massacre by bribing the judge.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Rineen ambush was an ambush carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 22 September 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It took place at Drummin Hill in the townland of Drummin, near the hamlet of Rineen (or Rinneen), County Clare. The British forces, enraged by the ambush and the escape of the IRA force, took out reprisals on civilians in the surrounding area. Immediately after the action ended, they burned the house and farm of the O'Gorman family and shot a local farmer, Sean Keane. He later died of his wounds. That night, a mixed force of police and soldiers raided the home of Dan Lehane, whose two sons had taken part in the ambush. They shot him dead and burned his house at Lahinch. Patrick Lehane was burned to death in the attic when the house was set alight. Several other houses were burned in Lahinch and a further eight were razed in Milltown Malbay. A separate RIC raid took place in Ennistymon, in which several homes and businesses were burned. In this raid they killed Tom Connole, the secretary of the local ITGWU trade union, and burned his home. PJ Linnane, a 15-year-old boy, was also shot dead by the police. In what may have been a belated reprisal for the ambush, four IRA men were arrested by the Auxiliaries at Killaloe on 16 November, beaten, interrogated and then shot dead. Another two were summarily executed in the same way on 22 December at Kilkee. As a result of the reprisals, the civilian population "became embittered against [the British] and adopted a more defiant attitude to the [British] military and Black and Tans".
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Rear Admiral Sir Anthony Cecil Capel Miers, VC, KBE, CB, DSO & Bar was a Royal Navy officer, who served in the submarine service during the Second World War. He was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was deeply involved in two incidents alleged to be war crimes while commanding HMS Torbay. In 1989 former Royal Naval Officer and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy published his autobiography, in which he devoted several pages to "a submarine atrocity" on the night of 9 July 1941 which gave rise to the accusation of 'war crimes'. According to the accounts, on two separate occasions, Miers ordered the machine-gunning of several shipwrecked German soldiers in rafts who had jumped overboard when their vessels were sunk by the Torbay. These events were witnessed and reported by acting First Lieutenant Paul Chapman who reported "everything and everybody was destroyed by one sort of gunfire or another". Miers also made no attempt to conceal his actions, his patrol log recording: "Submarine cast off, and with the Lewis gun accounted for the soldiers in the rubber raft to prevent them from regaining their ship..." When informed of Miers's actions, Flag Officer Submarines, Admiral Horton wrote to the Admiralty about the possibility of German reprisals: "As far as I am aware, the enemy has not made a habit of firing on personnel in the water or on rafts even when such personnel were members of the fighting services; since the incidents referred to in Torbay's report, he may feel justified in doing so." The Admiralty then sent a strongly worded letter to Miers advising him not to repeat the practices of his last patrol. Miers continued to serve in the Royal Navy after the war, and achieved the rank of Rear Admiral in 1956.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Burning of Cork by British forces took place on the night of 11–12 December 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It followed an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, in which one of the patrol was killed and eleven wounded. In retaliation, Auxiliaries, Black and Tans and British soldiers set fire to a number of houses and then looted and burnt numerous buildings in the city centre. Many civilians also reported being beaten, shot at, robbed and verbally abused by British forces. Firefighters later testified that British forces hindered their attempts to tackle the blazes by intimidating them, shooting at them and cutting their hoses. More than 40 business premises, 300 residential properties, City Hall and the Carnegie Library were destroyed by fire. Over £3 million worth of damage (1920 value; €172 millon in today's money) was done, 2,000 were left jobless and many were left homeless. Two unarmed IRA volunteers (who were brothers) were also shot dead at their home in the north of the city, and a woman died of a heart attack when Auxiliaries burst into her house. British forces carried out many other reprisals on Irish civilians during the war, but the burning of Cork was one of the biggest and most well known. The British government initially denied that its forces had started the fires and blamed them on the IRA. However, a British Army inquiry (which resulted in the "Strickland Report") concluded that a company of Auxiliaries was responsible.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists, mostly from Northern Ireland, who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and nationalists during the Troubles, beginning in the 1970s. Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area of counties Armagh and Tyrone. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The gang included British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Twenty-five British soldiers and police officers were named as purported members of the gang. The Cassel Report investigated 76 killings attributed to the group and found evidence that British soldiers and RUC officers were involved in 74 of those. John Weir claimed his superiors knew he was working with loyalist militants but allowed it to continue. The Cassel Report also said that some senior officers knew of the crimes but did nothing to prevent, investigate or punish.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The Miami Showband killings (also called the Miami Showband Massacre) was an attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group, on 31 July 1975. Five people were killed, including three members of The Miami Showband, who were then one of Ireland's most popular cabaret bands. The band was travelling home to Dublin late at night after a performance in Banbridge. Halfway to Newry, their minibus was stopped at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, where gunmen in British Army uniforms ordered them to line up by the roadside. At least four of the gunmen were serving soldiers from the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) but, unbeknownst to the band, all were members of the UVF. While two of the gunmen (both soldiers) were hiding a time bomb on the minibus, it exploded prematurely and killed them. The other gunmen then opened fire on the dazed band members, killing three and wounding two. It is believed the bomb was meant to explode en route, killing the band and framing them as IRA bomb-smugglers.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … You commented @Ed Kick but there is no comment?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I just hope I've proven to you both we're bad, very bad!
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … I'm not condoning any of that but we don't revel in those things we don't purposely do those things we don't celebrate those things, those things are horrible there is no getting around that. I'm not debating who is "better" than who. Much of the British political talk is lost on me as I have very little knowledge of said things. I can't really comment on the IRA I just don't have enough knowledge of the group to have a conversation about them. But if Richard is saying Corbyn has supported/condoned/not condemned Islamic Extremists actions that is where my issue comes in. I don't see how anyone could see what they do and not be disgusted, I read these articles and I am disgusted, absolutely disgusted that these things are allowed to happen. Just as you are with the events you mentioned above. https://www.rt.com/news/192692-un-isis-war-crimes/ http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/07/02/isis-executioners-spare-no-one-killing-74-children-for-crimes-including-not.html https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/21/un-panel-reports-isis-crimes-yezidis https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/11/iraq-isis-car-bombings-are-crimes-against-humanity http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-holds-3500-mainly-women-and-children-in-slavery-in-iraq-alone-un-reports-says-a6820776.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Oh yes, Isis are bad. But don't ever think we're better.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … "But if Richard is saying Corbyn has supported/condoned/not condemned Islamic Extremists actions that is where my issue comes in. I don't see how anyone could see what they do and not be disgusted" But haven't I shown why it's OK to be a sympathiser? The British did a lot of terrible things in Ireland with little or no consequences, it is absolutely fine to be an IRA sympathiser, there should be no hate for it. Richard shouldn't be cherry picking what is OK, because we're as bad, whether he admits it or not. Trying to claim the moral high ground for the British is laughable.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I don't know what you think you're proving to me that I haven't already acknowledged myself Nod. This was me about 20 comments ago: "Our country is far from perfect and our history - like every country - includes things to be terribly ashamed of".
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Saved!Rich .Editing … You've listed Bloody Sunday 1972, the treatment of the Mau Mau in 1959, the Bombing of Dresden 1945, the Burning of Cork in 1920, the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, the Easter Rising 1916 etc all of which I already knew about and some of which I brought up before you did. Give me some credit, I know my history and I'm not cherry picking anything. What I am doing is asking how far back into history are you going to go to justify your "we're just as bad" claim?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … We could go further, the Second Boer War 1899-902, the Boxer Rebellion in 1899-1901, the Atlantic Slave Trade before 1807, the Bolton Massacre in 1644, the Massacre of Berwick in 1296 and the Scottish razing of Cumberland and Northumberland in retaliation, the Massacre at Ayyadieh in 1191 where English crusaders killed men, women and children alike, the Massacre of the Jews of York in 1190, the Harrying of the North in 1069 killed 100,000 people. We can go all the way back to Boudica's razing of Roman-British cities if you like. There's plenty of blood in British history.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … My view is that our civilisation is still a work in progress today, messed up things still happen that British people are responsible for but we're a relatively civilised country with a good set of values most of our fellow Brits, our military, our public services and yes, even a lot of our politicians try and (by the standards of human history) pretty often succeed in living up to. The further back into history you go the less civilised Britain was and the more frequent and more barbaric these atrocities get and the higher the proportion of the population that didn't see anything wrong with them but we live in the here and now.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The reality is that our country is made up of millions of people with varying values, ideals and responsibilities, changing leaders, governments and political systems and a history spanning generations. As a British guy born in 1992 I don't feel responsible for things that happened during my lifetime that I've had no say in or that I was against, I don't feel responsible for things that happened before I was born and I sure as hell don't feel responsible for things that happened before my parents were born (i.e. most of the things you've mentioned) so yeah, I feel absolutely justified in taking the moral high ground and condemning terrorists. That'll be the deal with most British people today. Countries are huge and complicated and history is long and complicated, the modern generation of British people cannot be held responsible for all of it just to justify your "we're just as bad" claim.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The terror groups we're talking about have existed for relatively short periods of recent history (the IRA terror campaign lasted from 1971-97, the Taliban have existed since 1994, Hamas since 1987, Al Qaeda since 1988 and ISIS broke away from Al Qaeda in 2014) and everyone involved in them was committed to terrorist violence that inherently involves the killing of innocents in the pursuit of the goal they thought justified the means. I agree the Glenanne Gang and the UVF were just as bad as the IRA which is why they were designated as terrorists, treated like criminals and prosecuted by the British authorities. Their crimes were fewer and killed less people because they were smaller groups but the crimes themselves were just as bad. No argument here.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … When I say Britain has the moral high ground over the IRA I'm comparing the Britain of the 1970s-90s to the IRA of the 1970s-90s and I stand by that. Was everyone British a moral paragon during those years? Of course not but we were, as a country or even specifically our army if you want to focus on them, more civilised than a group who fought through murder and terrorism and that was responsible for the most overall deaths during the troubles and the most civilian deaths during the troubles. I know British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland, they were sent there as peace keepers and the majority of them did their best to do that in bloody difficult circumstances. Damn straight I think the majority of them who did their job, faced the dangers and still tried to keep the peace have the moral high ground over a terror group.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … When I say we have the moral high ground over ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hamas/the Taliban I'm comparing Britain in the 1990s-2016 to those Islamic extremists between the 1990s-2016. We're talking about groups engaged in ethnic cleansing and sex slavery, who aspire to the genocide of Jews and the execution of westerners, 'apostates' and anyone LGBT, the subjugation of women and a purely male religious dictatorship with barbaric punishments and fight for that through terrorist attacks ranging from 9/11 to the Paris attacks and suicide bombings to IEDs that primarily and intentionally kill innocent civilians. Do I think despite our mistakes and our flaws modern Britain is far far better than that? Damn right I do.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … As for Jeremy Corbyn, he's welcome to lament, learn from, apologise for or otherwise condemn any part of British history recent or ancient that he doesn't support. Alongside that though he should have no sympathy for resorting to terrorism which deliberately kills innocent people. He should never have opposed the peace process in Northern Ireland from the beginning. He should've either been a critic of the IRA telling them to end their terrorist attacks and pursue their goals peacefully or had nothing to do with them at all. He should never have lent legitimacy to them whilst they were carrying out a terrorist campaign that was deliberately killing hundreds of innocent civilians. He should have no tolerance for Islamist extremists like Raed Salah, Hamas and Hezbollah. He should've condemned his allies in the far left Stop the War campaign when they said the Iraqi insurgency (Ba'athists, Al Qaeda) were justified in using whatever means they deem necessary (i.e. suicide bombings, car bombings, I.E.D's) and denied the genocide of the Yazidis as a conspiracy theory instead of saying he's still proud of Stop the War and serving as their chairman. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of British history there is no reason why Corbyn shouldn't have held himself to a higher moral standard and consistently condemned terrorists and it's a disgrace that he didn't.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Double standards everywhere. You support the British army and government despite everything we've done. You deny any responsibility from before you were born but what about everything commited by British since 1992? What gives you the right to brush these things under the carpet and elevate yourself above others? But another guy who sypathised with the IRA during a time, in which I mentioned above, were getting atrocities commited against them cannot get away with sympathising almost 20 years after the IRA laid down their arms? If you're going to ignore everything from before you were born you have to do it for BOTH sides.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … We're getting nowhere here. What do the other guys think who posted in this thread? Have you guys read all the evidence I've provided for the last 100 years? Do you think we have any right to try take the moral high ground? Do you think it's OK for a population to resist an invasion of their country, would you? Do you think it's OK to sympathise after unarmed civilians are murdered by an armed force? Do you think it's terrible that only Britains enemies get punished for atrocities but the British are allowed to get away with it time and time again?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I don't think I've used any double standards at all. I've acknowledged the wrongs of the past. I've said that the modern generation of Brits isn't responsible for things that happened before we were born and that some of us won't have supported things that happened after we were born and so can't fairly be held responsible for those either whereas everyone who joins a terrorist group is obviously committed to terrorism. I've said that the only fair way to look at whether "we're as bad as each other" or if there's a relative moral high ground is to compare the past to the past (i.e. Britain during the troubles compared to the IRA during the Troubles) and the present to the present (i.e. modern Britain compared to ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hamas/the Taliban) and that the contrast seems incredibly clear to me. I've said that terrorist methods like car bombings, suicide bombings and planting I.E.D.'s are war crimes.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I'd be interested to hear what everyone else following this thinks too. I'll even ask some leading questions of my own. Are the goals and values of ISIS/the Taliban/Hamas/Al Qaeda barbaric and uncivilised? Were the goals of the IRA an attempt to override democracy through extreme violence? Can terrorist methods like car bombings, suicide bombings and planting I.E.D's ever be justified? Does one atrocity justify another? Does one atrocity justify another even when they're decades apart? Does one atrocity justify another even when the victims of the second atrocity weren't the perpetrators of the first? Even if you sympathise with a terrorists cause should you not condemn that their methods inherently involve murdering innocent people?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … All the things I've mentioned above are clearly war crimes too.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Go back and read what I said. Have I denied any of the events you mentioned were war crimes? No. Have I made excuses for Bloody Sunday, Dresden, Amritsar etc? No. Have I acknowledged there are terrible things in British history? Yes. Have I said that in the cases where it's not too late those responsible should be held responsible? Yes. Have I been proud of the cases where perpetrators were held responsible and how different Britain is today to how it used to be? Yes. Have you ignored a lot of the other points I've made? Seems that way to me. Give it up Nod, one war crime doesn't justify another and nothing justifies terrorism. In other words, two wrongs don't make a right, this is kid's stuff. Corbyn was wrong to sympathise with and lend legitimacy to terrorists, no excuse is going to change that.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … One mans terrorist is another mans resistance. You flat out refuse to acknowledge anybody but yourself might have a legitimate view. Did the French resistance use bombs to target German soldiers? Did they ambush German soldiers wearing civilian clothes? Did they kill French civilians who collaborated with Germans? The answers are YES! Is this OK because they were on our side? It seems that way to me. Swap France for Iraq/Afghanistan and German soldiers for the British Army and you have the exact same thing. Why is this so hard to understand? You're a French resistance sympathiser! Richard Pale-Corbyn! :D
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Didn't I deal with your French resistance comparison 90 odd comments ago? It mostly doesn't hold water and to the extent that it does I'm happy to criticise the factions within the French resistance that crossed the line and committed war crimes. I don't buy the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" schtick for a second. If you deliberately kill innocent civilians for the sake of whatever cause that's terrorism and it's unforgivable.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Me at the top of this thread: "The French resistance mostly fought through sabotage and intelligence gathering until after D-Day. There were assassinations and attacks on occupying soldiers and some of them undoubtedly crossed the line and carried out war crimes but let's get this straight they never fought using suicide bombings and car bombings in areas crowded with civilians, they never littered the countryside with improvised trip mines that kill innocents just as often as the enemy and they were fighting for a cause a hell of a lot more noble than restoring a dictatorship or imposing a medieval version of Islam."
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Saved!NodleyEditing … That's your view, based on your Christian morals. Not everybody shares those views, not everywhere on the world is the exact same! You need to accept that other cultures see things very differently. Corbyn can do all this, he's not blaming anybody for anything, he's not mud slinging or trying to put anybody down. He's not arguing over the past and trying to take an unwarranted moral high ground. He is the way forward.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … First things first, I'm not a Christian, my morals are secular, not religious. Anyway these are my views based on the idea that humanity is flawed but should strive to be more and more civilised and that there are reasonable universal moral standards which we should all try to follow and judge events around the world by. If you think I'm not respecting other "cultures" (ISIS, Ba'athists, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban etc) that don't meet my moral standards then yes, that's right, I don't respect them at all. There's plenty of room for the world to have diverse cultures that are all still civilised.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Then you should start respecting other cultures more, regardless of your moral standards. Who gave you the right to judge? Try to understand them, why they do the things they do. Maybe, just maybe, they are pissed at us for invading their country and causing decades long unrest. Are you proud of how the US and British have fucked over the Iraqi citizens?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Come off it Nod, respect has to be earned and the moral standards I'm talking about (terrorism is wrong, war crimes are wrong, ethnic cleansing is wrong, the subjugation of women is wrong, religious dictatorship is wrong etc) are incredibly reasonable and basic. I said I disagreed with the Iraq War at the very start of this conversation. I don't think the Iraq War justifies terrorism because I don't think anything justifies terrorism. You're just clutching at straws now.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … If respect has to be earned we haven't earned it after what we did to Iraq. I'm just trying to explain in simple enough terms so you finally understand. But i think you do, deep down, you're just dead set on winning this argument. Stop judging because you're not above anybody else. Your country isn't your army isn't, your morals aren't. Your argument just keeps ignoring truths and like comparisons between them and us because it doesn't suit.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … I don't have respect for a culture built around and striving for killing, bombing, kidnapping, raping, maming. Being in different part of the world, being a different culture, having different views doesn't change the fact that those are despicable things and I have no respect and no sympathy for them.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Have you read the evidence I provided? We're no better, and I'm sure they'd argue worse. They blame us for the way Iraq is right now. Until you accept people have different views to yours you'll never understand, or make any headway into making it better.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Evidence of what? That we've done bad things in the past? I don't need "evidence" of that, I know we have. I'm aware of a thing called history, I've learned a bit of it in school actually. That isn't the point, you can't say look we've done bad things how can we condemn them? Because they're doing disgusting things not because of us, because their religion tells them to. They kill thousands and thousands of people and they will kill anyone not in that religion with them, not because of what we did in Iraq, because their religion tells them to. Some of the events you talked about in British history are 50-100 years ago, that shows how backward the Islamic Extremists are today. There are no excuses for what they do, none at all.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … And this is exactly why we need Corbyn. Nothing would ever get fixed if left to you two. Nobody would talk about solutions, all you'd do is condemn and demand they conform to your beliefs. So where would you go from here, are you for military action to stop them? Or are you going to let them continue doing the things they are doing?
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Yes, they do have views that differ from mine and I couldn't be prouder that my views don't see killing, beheading, raping, kidnapping, bombing, torture etc. as acceptable.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … What kind of solutions could be "talked" about though? After America's nuclear deal with Iran, they were shouting death to America in the streets. Do they seem like they want to talk about peace"
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Saved!NodleyEditing … And they couldn't be prouder that they are fighting evil invaders that took their country illegally and by force. You see the circle we're going in here? Somebody has to make that first move, yes?
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … But they're not "fighting and killing "invaders"' they're killing they're own people as well, killing people in neighboring countries, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia etc. Not invaders, everyone, everyone who doesn't accept their religion.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … And demanding they conform to our beliefs is going to make them stop is it? Isn't that how this whole mess started, Team America forcing democracy on Iraq? Don't you feel a little bad about what we did to them? The mess we've left their country in? Richard has admitted we had no plan for after the war.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … No as Richard pointed out terror in the Middle East started long before America went to Iraq. They don't need to "conform to our beliefs" in the same way America and Britain don't need the same exact beliefs. But any belief that justifies killing, raping etc. of innocent people is unacceptable.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … According to your beliefs, maybe. It's one big circle, nobody will back down despite fucking each others shit up. It's a fact that we left Iraq a mess and with no proper army/policing extremists have had the chance to take control. I feel we need to accept that we should have done better, and a lot of misery was caused by our bad choices. Can't you admit your government did this? Why won't you admit to it?
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … "According to your beliefs, maybe" Really? We're at the point in this conversation where my statement of killing and rape is unacceptable is met with "according to your beliefs, maybe" Those are things people shouldn't do to each other is that really in question under any circumstances?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Like I've tried to explain so many times now, it's different beliefs! They truly believe they are fighting evil invaders, the French resistance did, the IRA did! They believed their war crimes were justified. Why is it so difficult to see how somebody else might have a different view? You need to accept those beliefs, be it religion, culture or hatred, to move forward.
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Saved!Ed KickEditing … Well we certainly have different views on this topic lol. It's been a very...interesting conversation but I think I have had enough political talk for a while. If only the site wasn't broken I could mess with my lists. I guess it's Favspolitics for the time being. Onto a conversation where maybe we'll agree a bit more lol.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Yes, I have incredibly different beliefs to terrorist Islamic extremists. Like Ed said, I'm very proud of that difference. What's your point? Not all beliefs deserve respect. People used to believe that the earth was flat, that there were only four elements and that leaching blood cured all kinds of ailments. I accept that the difference in beliefs exists, I'm in favour of understanding their beliefs for the sake of convincing extremists of how wrong they are but ultimately, beliefs that justify terrorism that kills innocents, ethnic cleansing, the subjugation of women, stoning and maiming as punishments etc are barbaric and I have no respect for them.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … If you think Corbyn has a solution that'll bring peace in the Middle East you're deluding yourself Nod. If more politicians had followed his approach to Northern Ireland (oppose the peace process, sympathise with the IRA pursuing their aims through terrorism rather than democracy) there'd never have been a Good Friday agreement. And frankly the Middle East has way bigger problems than Northern Ireland ever did. Corbyn's failure to condemn and willingness to tolerate terrorism and extreme views won't get us anywhere. I have no pretension that I know what the solution for peace in the Middle East is. In the future I might be in favour of interventions if there's a realistic strategy, clear moral goals and a commitment to leave the region in a better state than it was in before we intervened (i.e. like the interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, not like the intervention in Iraq) but that's never going to be the main solution to changing that part of the world. Hopefully education, reason and enlightenment values gradually take hold. Our part of the world used to be far far less civilised than it is now so in the long term I'm optimistic.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … But you should have respect for others peoples beliefs, no matter what they are, they didn't pull them out their ass, they were caused by circumstances. Listen to their story instead of taking the moral high ground all the time(of which we have no right). I have no idea if Corbyn has a solution to the middle east, to be honest, I don't care. Right now we have our own country to put right first. He's made a start though, instead of criticising them he's apologised for his party's poor decisions which has ultimately led to many of the problems there currently. That's step one done, acknowledging that we caused at least some of this and saying sorry. Maybe when the time comes to talk, and if Corbyn is in power, they'll be willing to discuss things. Personally I'd like to see trials and convictions for the people responsible for the war, with the mindset of Iraqi's rght now that would go a long way to healing things.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I totally disagree about all beliefs deserving respect even if they're morally repugnant or factually incorrect. Even though I agree he was right to apologise on behalf of Labour for the Iraq war I still have a very low opinion of Corbyn because of his history with the IRA, Raed Salah etc amongst other reasons. This is just going in circles now though so if anyone wants to know my reasoning and my response to everything you just said they can scroll up. Go ahead and have the last word if you like. I'm curious what Husky, Silent, Waluigi and anyone else who reads some of this argument has to add but you and I are probably out of ways to disagree.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … @Husky Wing, @Silent Gamer, @Will Loughman. Have you guys read through this?
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Nah, I saw the giant wall of text and ran for the hills.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I doubt anyone's going to read the whole 125 comment debate but you can get the gist of it pretty quickly and tell us what you think. I'm curious what @Sha Ember, @Leya Kath, @Papissama etc make of what's been said about the French Resistance.
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Saved!PapissamaEditing … I haven't read through the discussion yet but I can say one thing now - We should be careful with "what's been said". Most of us have a tendency to consider "what's been said" as 100% accurate. In my opinion, a constructive discussion can occur if both parties have done their OWN research. Nothing good comes out of "what's been said" and the 2nd world war is a very touchy subject in that regard. -
Saved!Rich .Editing … I just meant what me and Nod have said about the French Resistance earlier in this conversation. Nod's making the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" argument regarding the French Resistance, IRA, Al Qaeda, the Taliban etc, I disagree with that.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I'm saying nothing more. I don't need to pick words like "terrorists" and compare them to French resistance whilst tagging French people in it. My arguments are complete in the status, I'd appreciate it if anybody interested would read through entirely what I've said before getting outraged and saying I called French resistance "terrorists". I'm confident most people here are smart enough to not get drawn in by baiting.
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Saved!PapissamaEditing … It's very hard to say. The contexts are too different to form a decent opinion, I think. It's also hard to talk about today's terrorism. There is too many elements that we (the masses) don't know. Just like we can do our own research on WW2 today, we have to wait at least 30-50 years to be able to do the same with ISIS and such.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Yeah, I was curious what my friends from France made of a conversation comparing the French Resistance to modern day terror groups. Why shouldn't I have been? I tried to give Pape a fair summary because this has been a hell of a long debate. Obviously I'd like people to read through all of what we've said and then give us their views too but it's maybe a bit much to ask.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Read all of it until nod posted 22 comments in a row, then said "wew lad" and dropped it
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Those were the most important ones! Before that I was at work trying to debate between jobs, when I finally got chance to do it properly I won the argument.
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Saved!Wrl6199Editing … I officially deem this the political lounge
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Richard Pale: "What I am doing is asking how far back into history are you going to go to justify your "we're just as bad" claim?" It seems that I never answered this and I made those examples very specific for a reason. All of them are within 100 years, there are people alive that may have been there.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!Rich .Editing … The new comment prompted me to give this a bit of a re-read and this conversation was insane. "We're no better (than the IRA, ISIS etc)" and (Ed:any belief that justifies killing, raping etc. of innocent people is unacceptable) "according to your beliefs, maybe". I mean damn Nod, do you still believe that?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … As for history, you can go back centuries/millennia and find parallels with the modern day and lessons worth learning but guilt starts and ends with the people that were actually involved in events. It doesn't get inherited by descendants or shared by people who happen to come from the same country.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … The problem is that you still cannot accept others beliefs it seems. We were the invaders to their country, our soldiers deserved everything they got. We were not innocent. This isn't about history, this is happening now, dozens of British atrocities happened to people still living today. You're actually trying to take the moral high ground condemning others whilst simultaneously ignoring what we do.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … And you're still standing by your bonkers two wrongs make a right/barbaric cultures deserve respect views it seems. I know my history and I haven't ignored anything but unless you think there's something that I'm personally guilty of that compares to terrorist war crimes of course I'm going to take the moral high ground.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … As for the UK as a whole having the moral high ground over terrorists, I stand by what I said last time: "When I say we have the moral high ground over ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hamas/the Taliban I'm comparing Britain in the 1990s-2016 to those Islamic extremists between the 1990s-2016. We're talking about groups engaged in ethnic cleansing and sex slavery, who aspire to the genocide of Jews and the execution of westerners, 'apostates' and anyone LGBT, the subjugation of women and a purely male religious dictatorship with barbaric punishments and fight for that through terrorist attacks ranging from 9/11 to the Paris attacks and suicide bombings to IEDs that primarily and intentionally kill innocent civilians. Do I think despite our mistakes and our flaws modern Britain is far far better than that? Damn right I do."
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Saved!NodleyEditing … There you go again, trying to raise Britain above others despite everything. The moment you accept we're the same this conversation will start to progress. This is why the world needs more men like Corbyn and less like you. Stop judging, start listening.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Never mind the terrorists, I'm judging you at this point. Your argument's deranged.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … So is your view that we're better than others. I've presented the facts, and we're clearly not.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … There is no we. That's the point everyone is missing.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/dec/04/icc-to-continue-investigation-into-claims-of-war-crimes-by-british-troops
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Saved!NodleyEditing … As long as there are different cultures and countries there will always be a we. As long as there are different football clubs there will always be a we. As long as there are different age groups there will always be a we.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … UK 1990s to 2018 compared to the Taliban, ISIS, Hamas and Al Qaeda? Yes, my view is that British society over that period is far from perfect and you've given valid examples of the worst cases but the UK is overwhelmingly more civilised and principled than the world's most barbaric terror groups. I'm amazed anyone other than an Islamist extremist would disagree with me about this. This is a black and grey issue rather than black and white but the gap is huge and the UK absolutely has the moral high ground.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I agree with you Silent, only individuals involved in the war crimes we've talked about or who support them can fairly be labelled guilty. Still, you can generalise a bit to talk about how moral/civilised cultures/organisations are.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … A group of people band together to terrorise an army. They plant roadside bombs, and they kill soldiers who are just there on orders and probably innocent of any wrongdoing. These people kill their own countrymen and women who collaborate with the invading army too. Who am I talking about? Iraqi insurgents or the French resistance? You say torture is wrong, but I've just proven British troops do it. We are no better than them. How can this be so difficult to understand? You have no moral high ground to speak about others from.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Anyway, now we've established that we're all as bad as each other and no can judge anybody else, it's time to look how to progress. We need to talk, and come to an agreement just like we did with the IRA. This is why men like Corbyn are so important, men like Corbyn are the best chance of a peaceful future.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … I don't even need to type new responses for any of that. Here's what I wrote two years ago:
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Saved!Rich .Editing … "The reality is that our country is made up of millions of people with varying values, ideals and responsibilities, changing leaders, governments and political systems and a history spanning generations. As a British guy born in 1992 I don't feel responsible for things that happened during my lifetime that I've had no say in or that I was against, I don't feel responsible for things that happened before I was born and I sure as hell don't feel responsible for things that happened before my parents were born (i.e. most of the things you've mentioned) so yeah, I feel absolutely justified in taking the moral high ground and condemning terrorists. That'll be the deal with most British people today. Countries are huge and complicated and history is long and complicated, the modern generation of British people cannot be held responsible for all of it just to justify your 'we're just as bad' claim."
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Saved!Rich .Editing … "The French resistance mostly fought through sabotage and intelligence gathering until after D-Day. There were assassinations and attacks on occupying soldiers and some of them undoubtedly crossed the line and carried out war crimes but let's get this straight they never fought using suicide bombings and car bombings in areas crowded with civilians, they never littered the countryside with improvised trip mines that kill innocents just as often as the enemy and they were fighting for a cause a hell of a lot more noble than restoring a dictatorship or imposing a medieval version of Islam."
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Saved!NodleyEditing … 1) Nobody asked you to take responsibility. 2) It's not a competition. It's not who was most wrong. All parties have done wrong, so accept it, look past it and stop judging. There are intelligence gatherers in ISIS too but you're tarring them all with the same brush.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … WILL LOUGHMAN
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Saved!Rich .Editing … 1) Nod, you literally told me "you have no moral high ground to speak about others from" this morning and your whole argument is that "we are just as bad (as ISIS, Al Qaeda, the IRA etc)". You can't have it both ways.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … 2) Morality is a hell of a lot more complicated than that and so is the world. Of course there are shades of grey and there's a huge gap between relatively civilised countries that still have flaws and barbaric extremists/terrorists. Stop trying to dumb it down.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Give me a simple yes or no. Have there been British atrocities in your lifetime?
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Yes, British soldiers have been guilty of war crimes in my lifetime (i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan) and they've rightly been court martialled/imprisoned for it. If you stop trying to dumb it down and scroll up you'll see I've never said otherwise.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … You'll also see an explanation of the difference: "Even in war our soldiers (with some exceptions that I'm obviously not going to defend) pursue a hearts and minds policy, try to minimise civilian casualties and keep to the geneva protocols and I'm proud of them for that. They are not remotely comparable to terrorist groups with barbaric values that kill people because of their race/religion, rape and take sex slaves, give no rights to women and execute anyone LGBT and choose to fight in ways that cause massive civilian casualties."
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Thank you, now that part of the discussion is over. Nobody can claim any moral high ground.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Oh god, you posted again, going on and on repeating yourself even though you have no argument.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … All I can say is thank god for men like Corbyn. He's the opposite of you, he doesn't judge and doesn't avoid facts. He wants to help people and bring peace, all you care about is trying to win a debate at all cost.
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Saved!Rich .Editing … Nod arguing with you is like trying to play chess with a pigeon. Doesn't matter that it's checkmate, you're still going to knock the pieces over, shit on the board and strut around like you won anyway.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Facts win debates, and I earned the right to strut all over. You are just full of double standards. You ignore or play down all British atrocities to try claim the moral high ground, but condemn others for doing the same things. And you call Corbyn a terrorist sympathiser for holding peace talks with the IRA, that's like, wow....
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